15+ Samoan names for your lover (from old Samoan love songs)
What is your favourite loved up pet name for your significant other? It is babe? Baby? Bae? Honey? Hun? Sweetheart? Sweetie? Darling? Dear? So many Samoan couples I know have adopted these English terms of affection, but until quite recently, I had no idea how many mushy pet names we also have in the Samoan […]
How to Greet a Samoan Matai (Chief)
The heartbeat of Samoan culture is love and respect, or fa’aaloalo. How we greet people is a very public demonstration of this respect. Like a lot of languages, we have informal greetings for our peers and friends and then formal greetings for people we don’t know as well, or for those in authority over us […]
15+ pretty Samoan girl names, with nice meanings [and audio]
A relative once asked my mom for baby names. He and his wife were expecting a girl and wanted to give her a beautiful, meaningful Samoan name. My mom delved into the family history and over a few days she came up with a list of names. Each of these Samoan names carried so much […]
Beautiful Samoan Words… that make great baby names too!
My Receipts I am a student of linguistics who’s a little bit obsessed with the semantics and pragmatics of the Samoan language. This post is a product of several conversations with my mother, who used to run a Samoan language newspaper and is currently a professional Samoan translator, plus a trio of Samoan-born cousins. One […]
This Samoan Proverb is a warning about procrastination
This article was first posted in 2018 on our previous website, One Samoana. The uncle I mention here went to laugh thunderstorms in Heaven in 2020.
Why alagaupu (Samoan proverbs) are so important and how to learn them
A little while ago, I posted a list of 12 alagaupu (Samoan proverbs) that I’d found in my grandfather’s notebook, with explanations I got from my mother and her tulafale (orator chief) brother. I had no idea how popular that post would get – or how big an appetite our community has for Samoan proverbs, […]
12 Alagaupu (Samoan Proverbs) about Family
Last Word These are only 12 …well, 11 (plus 1 extra)… out of over 400 alagaupu that my grandfather recorded in his notebook. I’ll work on sharing more of them with you in upcoming posts – but yes, I may have to save my most favourites for myself and the lauga that I will put […]
The Lord’s Prayer in Samoan (with video)
After all we’ve been through these past few weeks… it feels right that we should return to our One Samoana program with a prayer, a ea? Let’s say it together: Lo matou Tamā e o i le lagi, ia pa’ia lou suafa.Ia o’o mai lou mālō. Ia faia lou finagalo i le lalolagi, e pei […]
Fa’alupega and the Samoan lauga
How the German bun got its name
I was hanging out with some new friends today over at the Auckland museum (they were celebrating the end of Samoan Language Week in New Zealand) when someone heated up a plate of mmmmmmm German buns. In case you don’t know what they are, German buns are a deep fried, crispy on the outside, round […]